Manual:Infantry Manual:Tactical:Tholians

Combat Report: Out of Nowhere
Sometimes Marine units find themselves out-gunned. This happens typically in altercations with the major powers of the Alpha and Delta Quadrant. One Marine tells us what it is like to wind up on the wrong end of the firepower equation.

February 20th, 2369. A Marine unit near Tholian space is treated to a Tholian Pearl Harbor, with nowhere to hide...

Lance Corporal Ella D’Gorga, 699th MSG: We were in garrison on Levara 19, basically resting up. There’d been some trouble with the Tholian assembly in the past week, but the alert status was low and we had three patrolling cruisers near our system, so no one was thinking there’d be a raid or anything.

All of a sudden, the alert goes off. We didn’t know it at the time, but three Tholian cruisers-- Type I-2 “Chandeliers”, big ones — had come out of warp right outside our gravity well and had turned a slew of raiders with nukes loose on us. One Chandelier was gunned really badly by the Broadsword as it closed in on the planet and was destroyed just after it dumped its raiding craft, but the others got away. And now the raiders are loose in the atmosphere releasing nukes. Most of them hit power stations and sensors, but one of the warheads came in toward us. We had like three minutes warning.

Top comes running in the barracks screaming at the top of his lungs for us to get the f--- suited up and get the MISS arrays and Arbalest team up here, and we snapped and popped. All of us are run ning with our equipment and uniforms out to the prep bay — this little pressure dome, basically. Leva ra-19 was a moon, and there’s virtually no atmosphere. Nothing that we can live in, anyway.

We had been off duty. I’m running along with my thug suit, boots, MIPPA gear and M-116 all in my arms with a big T-shirt, panties and slippers on. To this day, no one’s said anything about it, which is the most amazing thing about this story, in my opinion.

Top grabs Mitchell and Evans, our MISS team and tells them to take their array and wedge it into this munitions rack that’s fixed to the bay floor. No one knows why, but you don’t question Top when he tells you to do something. Not only is he big enough to remove your spinal column with one grab, but he’s a veteran. If he says “do something”, by golly — you do it! Then he hollers at all of us, who’re scrambling to get in our stuff, to pull in here next to the shield perimeter. That makes sense, now. And they turn it on.

Not more than five seconds later, the dome shreds. ZOWIE; the shock wave tears it to pieces, and there’s nothing but the heterodyning as the force blows over the shield layer and the flash of the heat cloud. It’s a miracle no one’s blinded. We’re all writhing around on the floor, scared s---less, for sure convinced we’re going to die. But we aren’t going to. Yeah, the shield; it’s trapping the air inside it, the way Top set it. But not only that, think about this — if it hadn’t been wedged in and secured, the pressure differential would’ve sent the array flying away like a popped balloon, because there’s no pressure outside. We’re high and dry, while everything around us is blasted or burned to pieces, or dead from pressure loss or no air to breathe.

But anyway — we’re all mostly in our gear now. Another minute and everyone’s checked over. We release the shield. And WHOOM, there goes the air. We’re in THEOG and safe.

Top had the Arbalest team going. One of the raiders was about fifty kilometers overhead, almost in a hover. We figure he’s the one that nuked us. He’s not indicating that he knows our Arbalest’s sensor array is on him. I guess they figured nothing could’ve survived that and maybe it was electronic noise from the explosion residue. Well, good theory-- there had to be a lot of that. But now, our Arbalest team is on his butt. And then, you know what? He starts to descend!

We’re all ready and waiting. If he broke ten kilometers, our MAPLIMLS were going to try too. We’re all hunched down, looking at Top and deciding whether to try it or not, because if we missed, then that raider’s got enough weaponry to light us up. MISS arrays are okay, but they aren’t good enough to handle direct fire from a spacecraft, usually. But our Arbalest team’s really good, and Tholian ships have crappy shields. They fired right as soon as he broke ten kilometers.

The Arbalest slams upwards, you can see a short vapor trail from the launcher and then the flare from